


You Remind Me

by anamatics



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Bittersweet, F/F, Implied Relationships, Past Relationship(s), Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily never expected to fall in love in a coffee shop and have it not last forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Remind Me

Emily Lake meets the girl of her dreams on a Friday afternoon in Denver, Colorado. She’s in town for a conference on high-risk school districts like the ones in rural Wyoming where she teaches, and is expected to report back on Tuesday, after the long weekend, to a full staff meeting about what she learned.

Truthfully, Emily wants to skip it. She’s never been one for public speaking. But she’s got the afternoon off and is making do with what little free time she has.

She’s sitting in a coffee shop near the hotel where the conference is being held, re-reading her well-thumbed paperback copy of _The Invisible Man._ She has the original at home, first publication. It was a gift from the people who had helped her when she had had her accident; they’d said that if anyone deserved such a rare and valuable book, she did.

There was an inscription inside the copy that they’d given her, in handwriting very akin to her own, that bore a date and a message so faded that Helena could barely make it out.

 _To Wolcott,_ it read, _with utmost respect. –H_

Emily has spent far too much time sitting with Dickens on her couch, staring at that inscription. She’s written it out a few times, watching as her hands form the same downward stroke on the ‘H’ and the ‘L’ and she wonders how it’s possible that her handwriting could be so akin to a man long dead.

She resolves not to think about it.

Still, this book holds some significance to her, Emily’s never really been sure what – like how she can’t stomach coffee and she adores the way that curly hair looks on little girls. More than anything, Emily hates not remembering who she is. Her memory has so many blanks and there was only so much that she could fill in before she started to feel insane.

So she sits at a coffee shop, rebelliously drinking tea and reads her book.

She never expected to fall in love.

A woman comes in from the mid-April morning, all tight jeans and boots and a flannel shirt. She’s got a skull cap pulled down over her frizzing hair and oversized glasses on, and she is completely and utterly adorable.

Emily watches her wait in line and order a coffee over the top of her book, eyes half hidden as she tries to remember if she’s ever flirted before – if she’s ever been attracted to a woman before. She’s been pretty that she’s bi, since she’s found evidence of both male and female lovers in the records that they provided her with. Emily’s okay with that. She does love the female form, and this woman is a stunning example of it.

She feels so awkward and all she wants to do is hide, but the woman turns just then, and her eyes hit Emily’s own intense stare.

It’s a _moment_ , Emily will take it.

Until the woman damn near drops her coffee and her hand goes to her belt and grasps at nothing before clenching into a fist. She crosses to Emily in three steps and Emily lowers her book ever so slightly, suddenly shy. Her cheeks are burning.

“Helena,” Oh, she’s local. Emily can tell by the way her voice sounds. Her own accent is harder to place; she’s been told that she doesn’t sound like she’s lived in Wyoming all her life. There’s a hint of something _other_ there, something that Emily can never shake.

Like she’s not really who she says she is.

“What. The hell. Are you doing here?”

There are many things that Emily was expecting. To be told off for checking out another woman chief among them, but _Helena?_ What a terrible name. And it wasn’t even her own.

“Sorry?” she says, marking her place in her book with a napkin (she can’t abide dog-eared pages) and setting in on the table. “I think you must be confused, my name is Emily.”

She’s not very smooth, she knows that. But hey, introduction was now done, Emily’s glad she didn’t muck that up somehow. The woman’s pulled a black leather badge out of her pocket and is sitting down and passing it wordlessly across to Emily. Emily opens it to find a very shiny badge and the woman’s face staring back at her, US Secret Service.

“Could I see your license please?” The woman – Agent Myka Bering, Emily reads – asks.

Always one to want to avoid trouble, Emily nods and hands Agent Myka Bering back her badge and pulls her purse off the back of her chair and finds her own wallet. She hands her ID across the table, and their fingers brush. Emily blushes; Agent Myka Bering just looks heartbroken.

Not really what Emily was going for, but the fingers against her own linger for a split second longer than what would be technically appropriate, and Emily smiles across the table at her.

“You’re from Wyoming?” There’s a raised eyebrow that goes along with this question and Emily gives an elaborate shrug.

“All my life.” She sips her tea, “I’m in town for the conference over at the Marriott.” She gestures over her shoulder in the general direction of the hotel.

Agent Myka Bering hands Emily back her license and smiles at her almost sadly. “I’m just passing through. Picking up some stuff for my dad – he’s a rare and antique bookseller down in Colorado Springs.”

Emily can’t help herself. She _loves_ books of all shapes and sizes. But mostly of the old and rare and musty variety. “Tell me, Agent Bering, what sort of books do you like?”

God, she isn’t smooth at all, but there’s something about the sad smile on the woman in front of Emily’s face that intrigues Emily to no end. She wants to know what made her so sad. Wants to know badly so that she can fix it and see what a genuine smile looks like across Myka Bering’s lips.

There’s a sly sort of a look that comes into Myka Bering’s eyes then, Emily’s seen a million times before, when a student is about to tell a horrible lie. She’s good at telling, better at catching them. She waits, this is sure to be good.

“I like the classics,” Myka Bering says, eyeing the book on the table. Her lips curl upwards, “Shelly, Dickens, Verne…” her fingers taps on the book on the table. “Wells.”

Emily’s always liked Wells.

By the fact that the smile on Myka Bering’s face is now probably genuine, Emily thinks that she probably has a soft spot for Wells too.

“I’ve always enjoyed his writing,” Emily agrees, fingers also resting on the book on the table. HG Wells’ face looks up at them from the back of the book and she adds, “And his mustache.”

It is, after all, a rather impressive mustache.

Her companion laughs, pulling off her skullcap and running a hand through her hair. “Can we start over?” Myka Bering asks, fingers cupping around her cup of coffee, cradling it to her lips as she drinks, long and slow. Emily is fascinated watching her lips move. They’re full, but not too much, stark against pale skin. No one here gets any sun during the winter, it seems.

Emily likes Nordic skiing. You get plenty of sun doing that, as Emily had the misfortune of discovering a few weeks ago. Her skin had only just recovered and she’s grateful, peeling in front of a pretty girl is rather unfortunate.

She picks up the book and tucks it into her purse. “I’d like that.” It isn’t every day that she’s accosted by US Secret Service agents who have mistaken her identity for that of someone else. Emily would very much like a second go at it.

Emily holds out her hand, aware of her stubby nails and the fact that they look bony and don’t really match her arms. She hates how she feels alien in her own body. Her movements can be clumsy at times; she lacks the confidence she feels she should have.

Now though, as Agent Myka Bering takes her hand, Emily feels confident. “Emily Lake, nice to meet you,” she says.

“Myka Bering,” it’s such a nice name, Emily thinks as she smiles.

They laugh then, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Myka’s hand lingers on Emily’s, her face pulling downwards, frowning, cradling the palm, turning it over.

There’s a scar there. Emily has no idea where it came from. Like the on her shoulder that looks almost like a bullet hole, or the long and thin one across her back. Emily doesn’t know what these scars are from, and it scares her how little she knows her own body.

“What happened here?” Myka asks.

It’s forward, Emily hardly knows her, but Myka obviously knows more than she’s letting on. Maybe Myka knew her before, and is afraid to say it? Emily doesn’t know, she wants to know.

She doesn’t know what she wants at all.

“No clue,” Emily sighs and takes her hand back, prodding at the marred flesh with her index finger. “I want to say it was a biking accident when I was a kid,” she’s lying through her teeth and she doesn’t know why. Emily hates herself for doing it, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t want this woman to know that she can’t remember much past three months ago. Her brain has filled in what _they_ could not based on her apartment back home, but there’s so much she doesn’t know.

Like the scars that dot her body.

“Looks painful, I was hoping there was a story.”

There isn’t, and Emily looks away from intense green eyes.

She doesn’t know what to say.

There’s a moment, a silent pause, and then Myka asks if she’d like to go for a walk through the park just down the road.

Emily would like that very much.

The park turns into dinner, which turns into drinks at the hotel bar. Emily’s never connected with someone like this, everything is strange and new.

After three drinks, Emily’s feeling a little tipsy, but Myka doesn’t seem fazed. She leans forward, across the tiny booth tucked away from the general hubbub that they’ve been sharing, and kisses Emily on the cheek. And then on the lips.

Emily’s breath catches and she watches as Myka’s face seems to be pulled in fifteen different directions at once. There’s _anguish_ and longing and pain and desperation and Emily’s head spins as she finds herself offering Myka her hand.

“Come up with me?”

She’s never been this bold, but her voice doesn’t shake. She doesn’t think about the fact that she lives alone with a cat and an apartment full of books, or that she called the house last night and left a message on her answering machine just so that Dickens could hear her voice. She doesn’t think about her lonely pathetic existence at home, tormented by a void that can never be filled.

No, she asks this very attractive woman to come up to her hotel room, her face not faltering, her eyes never wavering.

Emily _wants_ this.

“I’d love to,” Myka looks away briefly after saying that, her fingers tight against Emily’s, and takes a long breath. Emily’s coat is thrown over her arm and she’s got her room key out, fingers locked against Myka’s as they go upstairs.

She supposes that she’s a virgin. She’s had desires before, has flirted with coworkers and guys at the bar back home, but never like this. It’s never come so easily. Emily’s never found herself falling into bed with someone (after they pulled a badge and demanded to see some ID) without a thought.

It’s then that she figures it out. That Myka did know her before the accident, before all memories of her life were gone. Myka knows how her body reacts, how to move her hands and her tongue and her lips to give Emily one of the strangest orgasms of her life.

Myka is crying, Emily is coming, she can’t help herself then, Myka’s pushed her over the edge and Emily hates herself for not being able to stop and provide comfort to her lover.

She calms down quickly, her breathing still uneven as she pulls herself up, watching as Myka rubs at her eyes.

“You knew me before,” she says it like an accusation. Because it is. Because Myka lied to her and Emily went and slept with her instead of seeing through the lie.

They always told her that she was rather naive at work.

“I-” Myka starts, her breath coming in short pants, her eyes narrowed and her expression glum. Emily watches her as she thinks, chewing on her lip, fidgeting, glancing towards the door.

Emily wouldn’t blame her for running. It wasn’t the best sex.

“I can’t tell you that. I don’t know what they’ll do. I don’t want them to take you away too,” Myka’s hand is clenched tightly around Emily’s forearm. It hurts, Emily doesn’t pull away.

“What do you mean?” she asks, ignoring the pain her wrist.

Myka shifts, pressing a kiss against Emily’s parted lips, her kiss saying everything that her words could not. Emily loves literature; she knows what desperation is described as in regards to kissing. She never thought that she’d ever experience such desperation in a kiss, but Myka is trying to tell Emily things that she’s not sure are even meant for her ears.

“I can never see you again,” Myka whispers, their foreheads pressed together. “If you ever see me, it means that Emily Lake will cease to exist.”

Emily doesn’t really know what that means, but when she finds her bed empty in the morning she isn’t all that surprised. There’s a note on the bedside table, a single line in clear, precise handwriting.

 _I am truly sorry._

She goes home and tries not to think about it. Edna, her teaching assistant, tells her she looks lovesick and Emily just shakes her head.

She wants to continue existing, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Initially, I had wanted to do a long, drawn out, Myka/Emily AU, but this made more sense in the context of the show. This would, arguably, take place before or during 3x01. Title is from the Usher song 'U Remind Me' - which is rather fitting for the Myka/Emily dynamic. Particularly the line 'you wouldn't believe all of the shit she put me through.'


End file.
